Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

“Chap and I will go,” Leesil put in. “And Ghassan, as he knows the region. Everyone else stays here.”

An alarm bell rang in Chap’s mind, and he quickly focused on Leesil.

—No— ... —Brot’an ... comes ... with us— ... —I would sooner ... leave ... the orb ... with the vampire— ... —As Chane ... will protect ... it ... for Wynn—

Only Leesil’s eyes shifted Chap’s way, though he should not have done so with Brot’an watching.

—Chane will be ... dormant ... all day— ... —And neither Wynn ... nor Osha ... could stop ... Brot’an—

Leesil’s expression did not alter. “Brot’an comes too. If we run into trouble with brigands, we’ll need someone else to defend us.”

Brot’an raised the eyebrow with the scars running through it. Likely, he was not fooled by Leesil’s reason.

“Of course,” agreed the aging assassin.

“Then it’s settled,” Magiere said. “We leave as soon as we’re supplied.”

Late that night, Leesil lay on a pile of arranged cushions on the floor of the cluttered main room holding Magiere with her back into his chest. She was awake as well, and they shared a single pillow and blanket.

Ghassan had taken one of the beds in the bedchamber, and this seemed only fair as he had spent a number of nights sleeping on the floor or in a chair. Wayfarer and Chap were tucked away in the other bed. Osha slept in there on the floor beside them, and Brot’an had taken a space on the floor on the other side of Ghassan’s bed, actually lying down for once.

Wynn and Chane had remained out in the main room, sitting against a pillow pressed against the one bare wall. Shade lay curled up beside Wynn. Until a short while ago, Wynn and Chane had been studying a text together and quietly practicing their spoken Sumanese. At some point, Wynn fell asleep on his shoulder, and he did not attempt to move her. Instead, he sat leaning against the wall studying the text alone while she slept up against him.

The sight had unnerved Leesil, so he’d rolled over and put his arm around Magiere, pulling her closer.

“I don’t want you doing this alone,” he whispered.

“There’s no other way.”

With nothing more he could say, he lay there unable to sleep.

“It’s the last one,” she added after a while. “Then it’s all over.”

He wanted to believe that. “And we’ll go home to the Sea Lion?”

The two of them owned a cozy tavern with an upper-floor home in a small coastal town called Miiska. All Leesil wanted was to go back there, serve drinks and food to townsfolk he knew, and run card games and sleep with Magiere in their own bed upstairs.

“Yes,” she promised. “Once I have the orb of Air, as soon as we’ve found a place to hide it and the orb of Spirit—someplace where the Enemy can’t reach them—we’ll go home.”

She rolled toward him, and he propped up on one elbow, looking down into her face. He never stopped marveling at the beauty of her flawless pale skin, black hair, and dark eyes.

“Only one more,” she whispered.

Pulling the blanket up over their heads, she kissed him softly on the mouth.

Half a moon later, Leesil pushed through the flap of a tent he shared with Chap and stepped out into the glare of the great Suman desert. Heat enveloped him instantly, though inside the tent was only slightly less hot.

To the east, west, and south all that he could see was endless hardpack with no vegetation. To the north, there were dunes in the distance, and farther north he could make out the vast Sky-Cutter Range. Those endless peaks separated the continent’s north half from its south and, from what Wynn and Ghassan claimed, stretched from coast to coast.

Six days and nights had passed since Magiere had gone on alone, north by northeast.

Leesil had made one last attempt to go with her, and again Chap had gotten in his way, not that Magiere would even listen to Leesil’s arguments. Before her departure, Ghassan had taught her how to activate the tracking device and, just in case, came up with a way to strap it to her off hand.

However, though the device worked, it hadn’t behaved anything like when the domin had tested it with Wynn in the hideaway.

Magiere’s arm didn’t lurch outward. Maybe distance mattered, but Leesil saw her arm tremble enough to know she wasn’t faking. She had turned north by northeast and raised her arm, shifting it for a guild line. In secret, he’d half hoped the device wouldn’t work and she’d have to find another way ... one that didn’t involve her walking deeper into the desert alone.

They were well supplied and, before she left, they’d made certain she carried as much as she dared. In addition to loading her down with a small pack of food and two large, bulging waterskins, Ghassan gave her a stout walking stick and a cold-lamp crystal, for she had to keep moving at night as much as possible. He then tied a piece of white muslin over her head. The cloth draped halfway down her back and reached her eyebrows in the front. He made her take her cloak, claiming that, after the day’s heat, she might feel cold at night.

Ghassan didn’t understand what Magiere would become just to survive out there.

She wouldn’t feel cold—or even heat—when the dhampir consumed her.

She’d considered taking a folded tent, but in the end they’d decided against this, as it would’ve been extra weight and the water was more important. If she stopped during the day, she had the walking staff to prop up the cloak for shelter.

She’d left at dusk.

Leesil had watched until he could no longer see her in the distance. He didn’t want that to be his last memory of her.

Since then, as today, he spent much of his time scanning the empty horizon.

A rustling made him turn his head to look back.

Chap emerged from the tent they shared, skirted the resting camels, and came toward him.

—Staring ... will not ... bring her ... sooner— ... —It will ... only ... blind you—

Leesil turned back to the desert, with its air rippling in the heat.

“Get back under cover,” he said. “In that fur, it takes too much water to cool you down.”

This was an additional problem. Even when they’d chanced upon a well along the way, Ghassan had watched everywhere as the rest of them refilled the waterskins. Taking a tribe’s water was worse than stealing its gold or property. Leesil could understand that, for it was so hot out here that any sweat dried as fast as it could form.

How long would they just sit and wait? What could they do to survive if they had to go after Magiere?

—It has been ... only ... six ... days—

Annoyance bubbled up inside Leesil; he could count for himself.

Cocking his head, he looked toward the other tent for Ghassan and Brot’an. While setting up camp, neither had expressed the slightest hesitation at sharing with the other. At first Leesil found this odd, as not only were the two men strangers but both were secretive by nature.

Then he remembered that Ghassan had spent much of his life in a sage’s guild, with little day-to-day privacy. Brot’an had undergone long journeys with other members of his caste and would be similarly accustomed to shared sleeping arrangements.

Leesil had simply been glad that he and Chap had their own tent. The past six days would have been worse had they been forced to sleep beside Brot’an.

When—how—were they ever going to get rid of the scarred old assassin?

At more rustling in the quiet morning, Ghassan emerged from the second tent and approached. He didn’t appear affected by the heat, and his lips were less cracked or chapped than anyone else’s. The domin scowled at both Leesil and Chap standing out under the sun.